The increasing prevalence of hardcore drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine (crystal meth) pose a great danger not only to the economic well-being of the users but to the future of the country. What is more disturbing is the relative ease with which the drugs seem to enter the country and seeing that we don’t have opium plantations the assumption would be that they are all imported. The drugs seem to have made their way onto various societal structures from school children to professionals and even community leaders. The only people they seem to have eluded are our security personnel as they seem either not to be grappling the severity of the damage that these drugs are causing to our society or they are just not interested.
The increase in the number of admissions at Sbrana Psychiatric Hospital should serve as a warning to authorities that drastic measures need to be adopted to save our society. The proliferation of these relatively expensive drugs into the low income societies is what poses the greatest danger as many are bound to resort to crime to sustain their habits. Already prostitution by female addicts is said to be on the increase and it is only a matter of time before we start recording increases in house breakings, armed robberies and even murder.
We do not need fighter jets to fight the drug war which we seem to be losing every day that passes by.
The situation has become so severe that there are reports of drugs making their way into the country’s prison system. Drugs also bring a different dynamic to the fight against social ills because of the lucrative nature of the business. Drug dealers possibly have enough money to bribe our obviously underpaid police officers who are also ill equipped to curb this scourge. It is still mind boggling as to how school children can know where to get drugs and our intelligence officers don’t. It would be beneficial to ensure that the huge security spending that we are witnessing is channeled towards fighting real and not perceived enemies.
We do not need fighter jets to fight the drug war which we seem to be losing every day that passes by. What we need is advanced detection equipment mounted at all entry points and increased patrols along our borders. We need to look into the effectiveness of the diamond and narcotics squad (DNS) and take appropriate action where necessary. If anything we need to enlist the services of the entire security apparatus from the DISS, CID, MI, and the DNS to ensure that this problem does not get out of hand. If we were to commit resources that we used to fight legal substances like alcohol abuse fight we would make headway.